Haruki Murakami Quotes (242 Quotes)

Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams.

Becoming a different person might be hard, but taking on a different name is a cinch.

Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion.

Symbolism and meaning are two separate things. I think she found the right words by bypassing procedures like meaning and logic. She captured words in a dream, like delicately catching hold of a butterfly's wings as it flutters around. Artists are those who can evade the verbose.

I thought about the screws and their happiness. Maybe they were glad to be free of the eggbeater, to be independent screws, to luxuriate on white trays. It did feel good to see them happy.

Were the stars out when I left the house last evening? All I could remember was the couple in the Skyline listening to Duran Duran. Stars? Who remembers stars? Come to think of it, had I even looked up at the sky recently? Had the stars been wiped out of the sky three months ago, I wouldn't have known.

Beethoven, he learned, was a proud man who believed absolutely in his own abilities and never bothered to flatter the nobility. Believing that art itself, and the proper expression of emotions, was the most SUBLIME thing in the world, he thought political power and wealth only served one purpose: to make art possible.

I don't know what it means to live.

It feels like everything's been decided in advance that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense of who I am. It's like my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch.

Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.

What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.

Beyond the edge of the world there's a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.

I don't think I'd want Mickey Mouse pimping for me anyway.

It must be though on you not being able to read, but it's not the end of the world. You might not be able to read, but there are things only you can do. That's what you gotta focus on - your strengths.

The Earth slowly keeps on turning. But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone's living in them.

It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.

When microorganisms die, they make oil; when huge timbers fall, they make coal. But everything here was pure, unadulterated rubbish that didn't make anything. Where does a busted videodeck get you?

Both were rather precocious, and like many precocious young people they found it hard to grow up.

I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.

It was a strange feeling, like touching a void.

The end of my penis is still a bit sore and stings a little when I take a leak. The tip's red. My fresh-from-the-foreskin cock is still plenty young and tender. Condensed sexual fantasies, Prince's slippery voice, quotes from all kinds of books-the whole confused mess swirls around in my brain, and my head feels like it's about to burst.

It's like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.

Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.

But intolerant,narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host,change form,and continue to thrive. They're a lost cause, and I don't want anyone like that coming in here.

I know I'm a little different from everyone else, but I'm still human being. That's what I'd like you to realize. I'm just a regular person, not some monster. I feel the same things everyone else does, act the same way. Sometimes, though, that small difference feels like an abyss. But I guess there's not much I can do about it.

It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine.

The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.

As a writer, I felt it necessary to raise the alarm that a rampant, clandestine and unlawful trade in original manuscripts exists.

In principle, ownership of handwritten documents lies with the author. A large number of my manuscripts have been leaked and are now missing. These are stolen items of sorts, because they were taken without permission and sold for financial gain.

I lost some of my friends because I got so famous, people who just assumed that I would be different now. I felt like everyone hated me. That is the most unhappy time of my life.

Original manuscripts are private information. Like personal letters, there are parts I don't want other people to see.

There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished.